Mist, Prologue: The Tomb
by Razorwind
Summary: Story 1 of the Mist Arc. Four explorers open a tomb in the jungle, releasing an Echidna with the ability to tap into chaos powers and has a distict lack of memory. Can Mist re-discover his past, and is it as white as his fur once was? Complete
1. 1 Tomb

Mist Prologue: The Tomb 

'Tap, tap', 'Tap, tap', 'Crack'

  The four-man team of explorers finally broke through the final obstacle barricading the entrance to the ancient tomb; they had been attacking the multiple barricades for three days and had only just opened the enclosed passage to open air for the first time in who-knows how many hundreds of years.

"Stand back now, we need to let some fresh air in" the team leader told the others

  They all stood back, away from the entrance, then, after five minutes, the leader gave the all clear and the four men strode into the darkness of the tomb. They lit their torches and looked around at the smashed tunnel walls, adorned with strange, runic letters that none of them could decipher, slowly they advanced, they crept around the corridors until, suddenly, they were bathed in a bright, green light. The light left as suddenly as it had appeared and the four men felt a little drained, as if the light had wrung them out, like a wet sponge. They looked around again, and saw that the runes had changed somehow, they were now discernable letters, words, and sentences, and somehow they could understand the runes. Slowly they pressed on, reading the runes as they went, the words told a strange story of the tomb's construction and hinted about its purpose. They followed the story, leading them down towards the heart of the tomb, to a door that was closed, seemingly sealed and appeared impenetrable. The runes told the men about powers within the room behind the door and about a panel to the left of it, a panel that when the men removed it, appeared to be a strange metal that concealed wiring behind it. As one of the men reached towards the wires a red light bathed him and a light blinked on overhead, a touch pad became illuminated above the wired cavity and the aforementioned panel was yanked back into place.

  The four men stared at the pad on the wall, the runes on it spelled out only one word…'Open'. The button was pressed and the door broke apart and slid up to allow the team access to the room beyond, lights activating as they crossed the threshold. The team saw before them a sprawling lab-like construction that appeared damaged, as if a great battle had been fought there. In the middle of the room were three, egg-shaped pods, one had been almost totally destroyed, shattered by some impact, the second had only the front smashed in, but the third was unmarked, undamaged and stood there, its presence dominating the floor space it rested on. A crescent shaped control console was blinking into life before the four explorers, it had screens showing the pods, two showed the pods as being inoperative and out of commission, but the third showed a different scene, it showed a strange shape within the pod, connected to a breather of some description and floating in some form of liquid. The readout showed the life form in the pod to be alive and healthy.

"Wake up time I think," said one of the explorers as he reached for the button that would open the pod and release the slumbering creature.

  Ignoring the cries of his comrades he pushed the release button. Lines appeared on the egg, dividing it into sections from top to bottom, the casing slid apart and down, revealing a transparent shell encasing the creature in its liquid prison. Now they could see it properly, the creature reminded the four men of something, some other creature just like it, one the four had seen before somewhere. Before they could remember what it was they had seen that resembled this green skinned creature, the creature in question stirred within the liquid cell, it's eyes shot open, white with blood red irises and pupils like black holes, seemingly drawing in all the light around them, around the creature's neck was a fine, silver chain with a pendant that contained a sliver of green crystal as the set piece. The creature stared at them, then began to turn into a fine grey mist, the red eyes still watching them, the creature's four, long, gaseous claws that sprouted from it's knuckles, two on either hand, shot out and passed through the transparent material, the claws seamed to cut through the material yet left no mark, when the creature was done it resumed it's former pose and solidified back into it's previous form. The second this happened, long trails began to appear on the transparent material of it's prison, mimicking the path the gaseous claws had taken, when the tracks had completed their mimic, the container shattered along the tracks, showering the explorers with shards of the container's material

"You disturbed me, why?" demanded the creature, stalking towards them "have you found me a purpose? Well? ANSWER ME!" the creature asked, then yelled, diving towards them, claws outstretched.

  The explorers fled the daemon and ran away up the passages they had come from, bursting into the sunlight they turned and saw the creature and remembered the other one of this species they had seen, Knuckles his name was, the Echidna. The explores fled the tomb and headed back towards the city leaving the Echidna standing at the tomb entrance

"Who am I?" the echidna asked "I am of mist" he remarked, remembering how he had escaped the pod "I am Mist" he said, naming himself how he saw fit. "Now I, AAAAARRRGGGHHH!!" Mist's scream rent the jungle air as he collapsed to the ground holding his head

~~~Flashback~~~

Mist looked up and stopped bashing the walls of his prison, red gas was coming in through vents in the top of the pod, spiralling around and sinking slowly towards Mist

"NO! DON'T! PLEASE! LET ME OUT!" he yelled to his captors, but they ignored his plea and returned to their work, Mist turned to the pod a little way off, to his friend trapped in the pod

"Help!" he cried feebly as his vision was being blurred by the red around the edge of his line of sight, the gas was swirling all around him now, he was breathing it in, it was stinging his eyes, he couldn't see, all was red, then, suddenly, all was black

~~~End Flashback~~~

Mist got off the ground and stalked out into the jungle, in his memory he had seen another like him, a red Echidna and Mist decided that this Echidna must be found, maybe then Mist would find answers to questions he didn't remember asking, maybe then he could find his purpose.


	2. 2 Emerald

Mist 

  Tails was sitting in his workshop in Station Square studying the Chaos Emerald he and Sonic had found in the Mystic Ruins, it was the green one, and Tails had always wondered why the green one was always the first Emerald to be unearthed after a scatter of the emeralds. He had analysed it and found it had slightly less power than all the others had, this would explain why it never went as far as the others, he was now checking it visually, a flaw would explain why it was less powered. As he checked he discovered something, on one side, just under one corner, a sliver of the gem was missing, gashed out by something incredibly sharp.

  Mist made his way through the jungle, following a strange urge, something pulling him towards something else, he looked around and something caught his eye, the necklace he wore, the gem in it was glowing. After hours of hacking through branches and undergrowth Mist finally stepped out of the jungle in some kind of plateau, he could see a sign a way off, going over to it he read it, it proclaimed that this was the _Mystic Ruins_, a platform was a little way off, climbing to the top of it the urge pulled him to the machine on the top of it. Stepping inside the machine Mist was startled when the doors closed, trapping him onboard the now moving machine, with beings he didn't know, they resembled Overlanders, but he couldn't be sure, he didn't even know how long he had been trapped inside that pod. Had he been trapped? He didn't remember any liquid coming into the pod. He didn't remember much actually. He was receiving a few stares, Mist stared back fiercely stopping the stares.

  Mist got off the contraption when it stopped at a place a voice called _Station Square_ and concentrated, feeling himself being drawn out of the station and down to the boulevard, he followed the urge, letting it bring him to the door of a workshop of some kind, the crystal around his neck glowing bright green. He knocked on the door

  Tails got up from studying the now faintly glowing emerald and went to open the door, in the frame stood a familiar shape silhouetted by the setting sun

"Oh, Hi Knuckles, come in" Tails said, waving his friend in

  Mist looked surprised but walked in nonetheless, following the little, two tailed fox, was that his name? Knuckles? He was sure he had heard that name before somewhere. Walking into the workshop itself he saw a green gem on the tabletop…and his crystal went haywire, it glowed and strained towards the gemstone on the table. Mist felt himself shift into his mist form, static sparking around his body, the fox looking at him wide eyed, the gem standing up, floating and rotating until a side faced Mist that had a chunk missing

"What's up with th…AAAAAAAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!" Mist screamed, clutching his, now solid, head, pain dancing around inside it…

~~~Flashback~~~~

  Mist idolised his father, Kronar, blade master and personal bodyguard to the Guardian. His father had trained with blades for a good proportion of his life, and was an expert in all forms of blades; he was the first line of defence for the Master Emerald, normally fighting alongside the guardian. It was a sunny day on the floating Angel Island, it was peaceful, the peace only being broken by a faint whistling noise as Kronar taught Mist the art of throwing blades, they were using disks, having progressed from knifes, and Mist was getting a hang of it, hitting the target every time.

"OK, son, I guess that's enough training for today, why don't you find your friend?" Kronar told Mist, they were walking towards the shrine by now, Mist's friend was the son of the Guardian, nicknamed Knuckles for his enlarged knuckles that had developed into spikes, only Kronar, Mist and the Guardian had knuckle spikes besides Knuckles, and Kronar's and Mist's were More like blades than spikes.

  "Knuckles, Knuckles? Where are you?" Mist shouted, he heard a swish as Knuckles glided in to land beside Mist

  "Hi, what's up?" Knuckles said

  "I finished training and dad said…" Mist began, but never finished his statement as a strange creature materialized behind Knuckles, it had an oval head, with triangular eyes, no nose and a gash for a mouth and normal arms and legs, down to the knee and elbow, where they split into two arms and two legs. Mist pulled knuckles behind him, falling into his role as bodyguard, drawing throwing knifes he told Knuckles to stay behind him as he took a fighting stance, the creature ignored them, intent on something else and carried on towards the shrine.

  "It's heading for the shrine" Knuckles said, and then simultaneously they yelled "DAD!!" and sped off towards the Emerald shrine.

They got there seconds before the creature did, yelling about a monster before the monster in question tore out of the undergrowth, sprang to the seven pillars topped by the lesser emeralds and grabbed the green one. Kronar sprang into action, the jade green Echidna drawing throwing disks and throwing them as he bounded towards the creature, one blade hit the creature in it's legs, the other razor sharp blade slicing a shortcut through the chaos emerald and into the creature's chest just as Kronar slammed his knuckle-blades into the creature's head.

Taking the shard of the chaos emerald, Kronar had it worked into a necklace and gave it to Mist.

~~~End Flashback~~~

Mist came to with tears in his eyes to see a blue hedgehog standing above him; Mist was still feeling the static electricity sparking around him

  "Can you please move the Chaos Emerald away?" he asked the fox

  "Tell us who you are first," said the hedgehog

"I do not know my name, but I call myself Mist" Mist replied, the fox taking the Emerald away


	3. 3 Island

Mist 

Mist sat on the floor trying to get his breath back, the static caused by the chaos energies had dissipated and the hedgehog was still trying to question him, he couldn't hear the hedgehog's words, he was too deep in his own thoughts, going through the last memory he had been given.

The monster had resembled the figures he had seen from inside his pod, when he had become this, this...creature, a being capable of switching to a gaseous form and back, what was he? Who had he been? It may be time to start listening to the hedgehog, he thought.

"I said where did you come from? And why are you here?" shouted the blue hedgehog at the echidna sitting on the floor, who lifted his red gaze to the hedgehog's

"Who are you? Why are _you_ here? I have told you my name, what is yours?" he said in a calm, emotionless voice, he was testing the hedgehog, a voice like that creped people out...how did he know that?

The hedgehog was taken aback a bit by the voice and the creature's gaze, why did he have red eyes? "I am Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog, now, where are you from? And why are you here?"

Mist smiled slightly, "I have no idea where I'm from, or why I'm here, probably the emerald though" he said, remembering how the emerald shard in his necklace had drawn him to the hut

Sonic frowned, "The emerald? Are you working for Eggman? Cause if you are you won't leave here with that emerald," he said, dropping to a fighting crouch

Mist got up from the floor, "Oh please, I could beat you easily, so don't bother trying to fight me, and I have no idea who this Eggman character is, as far as I'm concerned he won't get the emerald, but neither will you, it shall be returned to it's proper place" and with that he sprang towards the emerald, turning gaseous as he heard Sonic start towards him.

Mist had decided that having someone pass through you was not a pleasant experience, Sonic had spin dashed straight through Mist as he dashed towards the Emerald.

Closing his hand around the crystal he became solid again and he grabbed hold of his necklace with his other hand,

"Oh crystal of chaos, holder of power, return to your place around the master, return to the vigilance of Chaos" with that incantation he became a grey mist, vaguely echidna shaped, as chaos energy washed over him, there was a green flash and he was gone along, with the emerald.

Sonic stared, mouth open, "C...Ch...Chaos Control? I thought me and Shadow were the only ones who could do that, Tails? Tails are you OK?"

Tails was also staring, where Mist had been there was still a bit of excess chaos energy creating sparks in the air, "Wha? Yeah, I'm fine. He didn't seem to know Eggman, where's he been for the past year or two?"

Sonic silently agreed with Tails and grabbed the radio on the worktop, keying in a frequency, "Yo, you there? Look, I need to talk to you Knuckles"

Mist re-appeared on the floating island the green emerald returning to the top of it's plinth, it was only then he noticed how deserted the place was, and the absence of both the other emeralds and the master emerald.

Scowling he looked around, the place seemed to have been abandoned for sometime, he wondered why. Taking the green emerald from it's plinth he walked over to where the master emerald had once sat, and felt a familiar stab of pain in his head, he dropped the emerald and fell to his knees, clutching his head as he blacked out.

Flashback

Mist's eyes snapped open, he was lying in the bottom of the tank, looking out into the lab, his vision had a red tinge to it, almost like he was seeing in infer-red, he could see the heat of the creatures outside, and his friend's heat signature in the far pod, he could also see the gas in the pipes above his friend's pod, the same gas that had just fallen in around him.

Roaring he smashed his claws into the pod wall, taking chips out of the glass, he focused on the power of the chaos shard, but instead of the small explosion of chaos energy that usually happened, he felt himself becoming lighter, he could see things happening before they did, he saw the creature spin and point at him about two seconds before he did actually turn and point, he began to thrash around inside the pod, his claws passing through the pod but he could not follow, his necklace couldn't pass through, and it had melded into his new form.

He tired himself out quickly and he reverted back to his true form, but as he did lines and cracks, chips and chunks began to appear along the glass, the pod then gave way and shattered, shards of glass bursting out and flying across the lab. His escape filled Mist with new energy and he bounded out, slashing a lab technician to pieces, as he became his mist form, chaos energy rippling around him, his blows solid whilst his body being not, he could hit them, they could not hit him.

He saw everything before it happened and saw the gas begin to drop into his friend's pod, he dashed across and smashed the front in, pulling the red echidna out of the glass prison. Shots flew past them and Mist dragged his friend out of the lab and down a long corridor, the door to the outside world closing, he flung his friend outside yelling at him as he tried to dive through.

The door closed on him, his necklace still inside the building, he knew he couldn't escape so he looked at his friend, solidifying as much as he could without becoming trapped in the stone. He turned his head to his friend, looking like a ghost as he had become semi-transparent,

"Flee my friend, return to the island, warn them"

"But..."

"Run, go, GO! Save yourself, Knuckles"

End Flashback

Mist was curled up in a ball on the floor, he had found the second part of his first flashback, he had become some kind of monster, he had been an experiment, and his friend had almost suffered the same fate. He could remember a little bit after that, he had returned inside the tomb and had fought off guards until he was both exhausted and waist deep in dead bodies, he had become solid and passed out, after that his memory was still a black void, an empty hole as black and bottomless as his black hole pupils. He could see a backpack lying on the floor, inside was a pair of sunglasses, he put them on and placed the emerald inside the pack, hefting it onto his back he walked off to see what had become of the island.

Knuckles had used the teleporter aboard ARK and had found himself on the edge of the old Sandopolis Zone on the island, not where he wanted to be. Ever since Sonic and Shadow had Chaos Controlled ARK away from the planet that teleporter had been acting funny, at least he was on the side closest to the shrine, he didn't fancy a trek across the deserts of Sandopolis.

When Knuckles finally got to the shrine, taking a shortcut through the Hidden Palace and the ruins of Sky Sanctuary he found it empty with no emeralds or echidnas in sight, just as it had been for a long time, at least the master emerald was safe aboard ARK, he was the only one with access to the teleporter, Tails had changed all the access codes after Eggman had left, and any ship approaching would be impounded just within the atmosphere until Knuckles gave it access.

He was about to press the button on his watch that would signal the teleporter to 'Beam him up' when his innate sense for chaos energy alerted him to an emerald's presence, the low energy signature meant it was the green one, and according to Sonic, the strange echidna had possession of the green emerald. Not a wasted trip after all, thought Knuckles as he took to the sky and followed the energy trail from the emerald, wondering who this mysterious echidna was, and where he had been hiding after the destruction of his people.

Mist could sense this newcomer, he knew the newcomer was an echidna but he couldn't remember that energy pattern, he couldn't remember a lot of things, he decided to wait for the echidna to catch up so he pulled some fruit from a tree and sat eating it as his pursuer came closer and closer to his position.

He had his back to the echidna when he walked down the path to where Mist was sitting,

"Hello, and who are you?" Mist said without turning

"I could ask you that same question," replied the other echidna, a male by the sound of the voice, a voice that sounded oddly familiar to Mist

He stood up and turned round, and almost fell back down on as he saw who the other was, it was a red echidna with a silver crescent moon mark curving around the base of his neck,

"G...G...Guardian! Knuckles! You're alive!" he said, wide eyed and staring

Knuckled frowned at Mist, "Do I know you?" he asked


	4. 4 Revelations

Mist 

Mist stared at his old friend, how could he not...he then saw why, Knuckles had known him before he was Mist, his fur had changed colour, he had once been white but the chaos energy seeping into him during his imprisonment had changed his fur green.

"No, you don't know me guardian, but I know you" he said, true enough, Knuckles didn't know Mist, he only knew who Mist had once been.

Knuckles frowned; he thought this echidna seemed familiar somehow, but this echidna was still around, he hadn't disappeared like the others, "So, who are you?" he asked "and where have you been these past six or so years?"

Six years, thought Mist, I was in there for six years? He turned to Knuckles, "My name is Mist, and I have been imprisoned in an ancient tomb for the past years" had he been imprisoned? He remembered breaking out of the pod; he was probably placed in a spare pod after he rescued Knuckles. A question formed, "Knuckles? Oh sorry, Guardian. What happened to the Emeralds? And where is the Master Emerald?"

"Mist eh? Well we decided the Emeralds weren't safe here so they were moved to a place no one could get to without my say so" Knuckles told him, deciding to widen the teleport field to include the newcomer, this Mist character

Mist nodded, that made sense, but, "Where are the others?" he asked

Knuckles looked taken aback, his eyes wide, "Y...you don't know?" Mist shook his head, "They're gone, all of them. I found a few bodies but the rest just disappeared" he said, adding, "I'm sorry" when he saw Mist's reaction to the news

Mist sat back heavily, gone, all gone, his father, any other friends he had, gone.

Knuckles walked over to the sitting echidna and made sure he was within the radius shown on his watch display, "Lets go Mist" he said

Mist looked up, "Where?" he asked

"To the Master Emerald" replied Knuckles, pressing the button, a few seconds later they were aboard space colony ARK, in the Shrine room to be exact.

Mist stared around, one minute he had been sitting on the path, then he was sitting on cold metal, looking at the shrine, he turned and saw a window. Walking over he saw the planet below, "We're in space?" he said in a voice that was barely a whisper

Knuckles nodded as he walked over to Mist, "The Master Emerald is this way," he said, taking Mist by the arm and leading him over to the main shrine, to where the Master Emerald sat.

Mist followed Knuckles in a daze then began to feel a familiar pain in his head, it grew more painful the closer he got to the Master Emerald, suddenly he was no longer in Knuckles' grip but dashing over to the Emerald, he stopped infront of it, the pain in his head beginning to become unbearable, he reached out a hand...and gave a scream that could have shattered glass, the lenses on his sunglasses actually did shatter, all the blood vessels in his eyes burst, blood began to flow from his nose and his ears and his memory began to return as a series of still images.

He was being carried down a corridor. He was in a room with a metal table. He was manacled to the table. A needle was in his arm. Something was on his face, he couldn't see it but he could feel it around the sides of his eyes. Then pain, terrible pain from above and below each eye. He passed out and came to not into the real world, but into a nightmare of a flashback.

Flashback

He was theirs; the device on his head rendered his former personality useless, just a voice, a murmur in the back of his skull. To keep him contained they had clothed him in body armour made of a foreign metal from their Homeworld, he had ankle and wristbands of the same metal but not the power to remove them.

He was overseeing the capture of subjects for his master's experiments, those captured were brought before him, if they looked right then he nodded, if not they were taken away. His fur had turned green from the energies he was being exposed to, the metals in his armour seemed to absorb and reflect the chaos energy of the shard around his neck, hidden under his body armour.

His masters had decided to invade the floating island, lots of subjects there, subjects like him, hardy, resilient, and easily controlled.

He had changed into his mist form, the armour restricting him somewhat, as he inspected those brought forward for experimentation.

He kept nodding or shaking his head with each subject before a certain one was brought before him, a purple echidna, a female purple echidna. The voice of the original personality was screaming a name, Miira. The mist grinned; his old personality seemed to have an attachment to this one, he was about to shake his head when the old personality gave him the mental equivalent of a sucker punch, 'knocking out' the mist's personality.

The mist snapped back to a green echidna that fell to the floor and reverted back to a white echidna, Mist.

"Miira, run, go, save yourself, I...aaaaaaahh!" Mist yelled, trying to save her, but the device attached to his head sparked and Mist's personality was slammed back into his head. He became green once more and then became the mist creature.

Try as he might The mist couldn't shake his head and condemn this 'Miira' to death, so he reluctantly nodded, and felt a pressure in his head lessen, the original personality was content, if Miira wasn't dead then she could be rescued.

The mist moved onwards on the island, leaving fighters to the grunts that followed him. He walked towards a place of great power, maybe if he could gain that power he could break the chains that bound him to his masters, maybe he could be free himself and become their master, he laughed a little at this and continued towards the power.

When he got there he found himself standing in the centre of a ring of seven pillars, each pillar topped by a gem of a different colour. The mist was standing in a basin of some sort; he could feel that the gems were giving off the energy.

He absorbed a little of this power and smiled, this would work and his bonds would finally be broken. Motion disrupted his concentration, it was two echidnas, older ones than the specimens he had collected, one was jade green with a bandolier of knifes around him and the other was red with a silver crescent mark on his chest.

They started towards him and the jade green one threw a knife, it passed straight through The mist, raising a smile on The mist's face.

"You pathetic creature, did you really think that would even faze me? Behold my powers," He yelled at them, beginning to laugh as he absorbed the chaos emerald's power, his form deteriorating, becoming less humanoid and more a swirling maelstrom of mist and energy.

The bands around his ankles and wrists snapped off and The mist's laugh became crazed, he was almost free. The body armour didn't snap, it melted, becoming a silver band, binding the whirling column of energy. With a roar of frustration The mist drew yet more power from the emeralds, his laugh becoming steadily more insane as the column grew in both size and power.

Suddenly the band snapped and the energy exploded outwards with one last cry, "FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

The control device attached to Mist's head disintegrated and The mist's personality ceased to exist, the green hue leaving his fur. No longer driven by conscious thought the energy pulse rippled outward, shaking the floating island to its very foundations. The guardian and his bodyguard, Koran, were flung against the building they had sealed both Knuckles and the Master Emerald in. The Hydrocity system sprung leaks and began to flood. Pyramids in Sandopolis sunk into the ground. The giant mushrooms on mushroom hill toppled over. The Marblecity shattered and fell apart, sinking into ruins. The pulse even caught the sky sanctuary, shaking its structure loose, the integrity beginning to fail. 

In the epicentre of the blast lay a white echidna with blood red eyes. Mist got up off the floor and looked around him, he saw a figure lying slumped against the building, it was a jade green echidna, it was his father.

"Dad? Dad are you alright?" he called as he ran towards the limp form of his father

"Kiraol, is that...you?" the echidna whispered

"Yes father, its me. It'll be alright"

"No, my time...has come. Take my knifes...avenge us...avenge us all" The echidna's eyes began to glaze over "I can see...your mother"

Mist, AKA Kiraol took the bandolier from his father's body, drawing his father's favourite knife he pressed it into his father's hand, which closed tightly around it. Koran smiled at his son and closed his eyes, exhaling one last time.

Kiraol stared at his father's dead body, wet patches began to form, they were his tears, he wept for his father, as he had wept for his mother. He lay his father down and walked over to the other body, the guardian's body. The guardian looked at Kiraol and said just three words, "Protect...my...son" then he too died.

End Flashback

Mist, now Kiraol, awoke in a pool of his own blood, tears flowing from his bloodshot eyes, he remembered, oh god, now he remembered. It was his fault, it was entirely his fault.

"I...it was me. I did it. Oh god I destroyed our people" he said, eyes wide, hands clutching his head "It was my fault! It was all my fault!"

The next thing he knew he was on the other side of the room, two big gashes down the side of his face. Knuckles had punched him hard, his spikes tearing the flesh. Kiraol looked up and saw Knuckles' face, livid with anger, "You! You destroyed our people?! Why? How? Answer me!" yelled knuckles, dashing across and punching Mist again.

Kiraol picked himself up off the floor and reached into the backpack, drawing out the emerald. He had betrayed his people, he had betrayed the guardian, he had even betrayed his father, but none of that compared to the guilt he felt when he realised he had betrayed Miira.

He said nothing, he just clutched the emerald and in a flash, he was gone.

He reappeared back in the tomb, outside the chamber containing the pods. He didn't go in; instead he dashed off down the corridor, deeper that the explorers had gone. He ran until he reached a door, and he destroyed it completely, the chaos energies tearing the door apart at a molecular level.

He had entered the containment room, he had never been allowed down here when he was under control, but he knew this is where all the 'specimens' were kept.

He looked a the tubes, some held hideously distorted figures that Kiraol knew would be better off where they were, others held perfect creatures, perfect except for the flat line on their lifesign monitors. Some tubes held live ones; it was these that Kiraol opened, releasing the creatures contained within.

He got to the last two, one held a red hedgehog with orange streaks in his spines, he was alive and Kiraol released him, the other tube contained a female, purple, echidna.

"Miira" he breathed, checking the lifesign monitor, a beat, she was alive.

He drained the cylinder of liquid and removed the breather, she coughed up some of the liquid, and he hit the release button. Nothing happened.

He hit it again, and again, and again...nothing.

Miira was awake now, and she could see Kiraol, he drained the green from his fur, forcing it back into the shard of emerald and became white once again. He placed one hand against the glass tube; she pressed her hand against his, on her side of the glass.

"Kir, I knew you'd save me" she said, then realised something was wrong, her air was running out, and the chamber wasn't opening!

"Kir! Help!" she yelled, sinking to her knees

Kiraol slashed at the tank again and again, scratching it, scraping it, cracking it. He shoulder barged the weak part and burst into the prison, slicing up his arms in the process. He grabbed Miira and pulled her out of the tank.

"Thank you...Kir" she gasped as she filled her lungs with air, then kissed him on the cheek.

Kiraol gathered the others around and pulled out the chaos emerald. With Miira holding onto his arm Kiraol began to access the chaos power to teleport them out of here, but at the same time he was trying his utmost to remain solid. He had betrayed them as a creature of mist, if they realised it was him they would flee. He couldn't do it, he didn't have the power in this form, he sighed and said a silent sorry to those around him. He let his restraint go and snapped into his mist form, he had enough power now and he warped all of them away before they could run.


	5. 5 Boss: EGG 01

  
  
"Dr Robotnik, Sir" came a tinny voice from across the control deck 

Dr Ivo Robotnik, known to others as Dr Eggman, got up out of his chair and walked over to the scanning station, he had been brooding over his defeats at the hands of Sonic. The robot manning the station turning back to the console as the egg shaped scientist approached

"Yes, yes. What is it?" he snapped, he hated being disturbed during his brooding sessions

"I've been monitoring unusual chaos activity recently" Eggman nodded, he had decided to keep scans of chaos energy, as a safeguard against sneak Chaos Control attacks on his bases, and to track the rogue Shadow's whereabouts

"Explain," he commanded

"First there was a small fluctuation deep in the jungle, roughly SE of the Echidna temple, which became a weak yet steady pulse that made its way to Station Square where there was an emerald class energy pulse, green power level.

As this died away there was an energy wave corresponding to the Chaos Control pattern that had an exit vector in Station Square and an arrival vector at Angel Island where the residual charge from the Master Emerald disappeared with a pulse of energy.

A massive energy surge was detected off earth, exact co-ordinates unknown, which was followed by a Chaos Control exit vector. The arrival vector was nearby the location of the first fluctuation and an exit vector was detected shortly after"

Dr Eggman watched the display during the Crewbot's report, the energy patterns were interesting, "Scanner, where is Shadow?" he asked

"Life form designated 'Shadow' is in containment aboard..." began the Crewbot

"NO! No you fool, the rogue Shadow, the one that is the speed element of Team Dark" Yelled Eggman, hitting the Crewbot on the back of its metal head

"Scanning for Residual Chaos Charge...Two RCCs detected, charge one...location unknown, Charge two...located in Station Square" replied the 'Bot

Eggman raised an eyebrow, two Chaos charges? So who was using Chaos Control? "System Core, Deploy E.G.G. 01 at charge two's location, and ready an Eggpod, I'm going too" Eggman said as he strode off towards the launch bay.

At Rouge's mansion in Station Square, Team Dark was relaxing. Shadow was lying on the roof sleeping in the sun, Rouge was training in her training room, putting herself through an obstacle course designed to test her every move, the prize at the end was one of the bigger gems in her collection, a sapphire the size of a football. E-124 Omega was in the workshop he had built, tuning his systems and modifying his weapons and then testing them on the firing range.

Shadow was awoken by the sound of thrusters firing and, thinking it was Omega, he went over to investigate. What he saw wasn't Omega, he saw a pod, it was rounded at the bottom, but pointed like a rugby ball, and the thrusters were firing from there, keeping the contraption floating. Above the point was a smaller curve that met a thick disk at the top, two silver boxed were attached to the sides.

Stencilled in white letters on the red and yellow object were letters and numbers, E.G.G 01.

Following his creation down came Eggman's eggmobile, the personal hovercraft that attached to all of his larger works.

"Ah, Shadow" came Eggman's voice "so nice to see you again, I'd like you to meet my newest creation, E.G.G. unit 1, Deploy," he continued, and on his command the pod unfolded itself.

The point of the bottom split into four and legs unfolded, hitting the ground as the thrusters cut firing. The boxes came away from the body on arms that unfolded, the boxes were missile launchers and the disk on top of the creation's egg-shaped body rose up, followed by a cylinder with one single lens set into its face, one red eye, glaring at the black hedgehog.

"Unit 1, deployed. All systems go"

The robot brought up its arms, laser targeters locking on to Shadow, a missile launched from each tube and the four missiles sped towards the dark hero who homing attacked the missiles, bouncing towards the mechanical beast, another homing attack hit the robot's cylindrical head, cracking the armour.

As Shadow bounced back on the rebound he saw his opponent's missile launchers armour disengage from the launchers and move further up the arm, uncovering the tubes, these tube slid back along the arm to reveal clawed hands.

Targeters pinpointed Shadow again and the machine's fist flew off the machine's arm, connected only by a cable. Shadow jumped, and landed on the robot's fist before the metal creature winched it back in, carrying its passenger. Unit 1 turned its head and 'looked' at Shadow before the black hedgehog did another homing attack, smashing the armour on its head again, rebounding away.

If the robot had the ability to look angry it would have shown itself to be furious with the black attacker. The missile launchers slid back into place and Unit 1 launched another salvo of missiles, quickly reloaded and fired a second salvo, Shadow homing onto and destroying each missile in turn, then launching himself at the machine as it uncovered its claws, one shot past Shadow, then the other claw missed him, the first claw was launched again, followed by the second.

Shadow landed on the second, transferring to the first as it was shot out to hit the claw that Shadow was on. He rode the claw back to the robot's head, finally smashing all the armour, revealing a glowing blue CPU system.

Unit 1 was about to shoot his remaining claw at Shadow when a burst of machinegun fire, and a whirling purple ball, smashed into its ruined head, destroying the CPU completely. The perpetrators of this event appeared a second later, E-124 Omega and Rouge stood beside Shadow and looked at both the ruins of E.G.G. 01 and Dr Eggman's gawping face.

"Inferior Model Terminated" said Omega, turning his attentions to Eggman

The egg-shaped man in question shook his fists at the Team; "I'll get you for that! I will!" he screamed

"No, you won't" said Shadow calmly, pulling the yellow emerald from his shoe, "Chaos Control!" Shadow phased out of reality in a flash of yellow light, appearing above Eggman's terrified face "Goodbye Eggman" he said as he came down.

Mist was sitting on the Floating island; he had decided to stay there instead of ARK like most of the other abducted creatures he rescued from 'The Tomb'. Miira had stood by him in his decision; she even lived here along with a few who didn't like the idea of living in space.

His head snapped up when he sensed the chaos energy being used, it was like when he teleported, only more powerful. He grabbed the emerald he kept with him and clutched it tightly, whispering "Take me there" he vanished in a flurry of green energy and grey mist.

He arrived in time to see a black hedgehog smash a floating vehicle from the air, the occupant falling out and skidding across the floor.

The fat Overlander whimpered and pressed a device on his wrist and faded away as he was teleported out of his predicament. Shadow landed and turned to where he had seen the green flurry of a Chaos Control entrance point, what he saw was a White echidna, with hints of green in his dreadlocks.

"So, who are you?" he asked the stranger, Omega and Rouge turning to look at the new arrival

"I am no one you know, you can call me Mist," he said, noticing the emerald in Shadow's fist as Shadow noticed the one in his, and the bat noticed the jewel around his neck.


	6. 6 Consequences

Mist 

_There is no action without reaction,_

_There is no decision without consequence._

---

As Kir noticed the yellow emerald held in Shadow's grasp, his emerald began to glow, setting off a reaction in the yellow one. Energy crackled from the emeralds then jumped from yellow emerald, to green then into Kiraol himself, he fell to his knees and reverted to mistform, energy dancing around him, as the rest of his memories were unlocked.

His childhood, playing with Knuckles and Miira, training with his father, lessons with the Guardian, birthdays, his mother's death.

He remembered being shown how to tap into the powers of the emeralds, how to sink into the storm of chaos energies within and find the calm, the eye of the storm, the single point of order within the swirling bonds of chaos.

He remembered the chaos power that had burned itself so deeply into his mind that he could not forget it, how to teleport, how to use the shard around his neck, how to read the life energy pattern of nearby organisms, their souls as it were.

He remembered his capture…

Flashback

He and Knuckles had been playing on the beach at the very edge of Angel Island, Miira had not come, she had to do chores at home and they were free from training and chores as their fathers were busy at the shrine.

They had been there the better part of the morning, fishing, playing in the sand, climbing the palm trees along the beach and jumping into piles of palm leafs, Knuckles showing off by gliding, something Kir couldn't do.

The pair lay on the sands, "What you wanna' do now?" Knuckles asked his friend as they both lay there, staring up at the clouds

"I dunno, want to build a sand castle or something?" Kir replied, his eyes closed, almost asleep

"No, I think I'll pass," said Knuckles, his lids beginning to close as well

Then a high-pitched whine was heard, coming from beyond the edge of the island, startling both boys back to full awareness as a strange object rose above the lip of the island.

It was shaped like a sphere except the forward hemisphere had split into four and was opened like the petals of a flower, in the centre was a dome with four large holes surrounding it. Out of one of the holes shot a highly flexible arm, with a claw on the end, which grabbed Knuckles and pulled him inside the craft.

Kir ran towards the craft, jumping for the dome in the centre, hoping to smash his way in and rescue his friend. He was so focused on his goal that he failed to notice the second arm dart from another hole, he only realised this when the claw grabbed him and pulled him inside.

When he woke up he found himself strapped to a wall, opposite Knuckles, and hurting all over. He saw that his friend looked very ill; it was then he saw the needle in his arm, connected to a tube full of liquid. He turned his head and saw a similar tube rising from his own arm.

The door at the end of the room opened and in stepped a familiar figure, oval headed, triangular eyed with multiple arms and legs, it was the same type of creature that had tried to snatch the chaos emerald from the shrine.

The creature studied both of them for a moment then plunged a needle into Kir's chest, the pain causing him to black out.

He awoke in a pod, he saw the creatures on the other side of the glass, Knuckles was in the pod across the room, and a red gas was falling from a vent above his head.

End Flashback

The gaps were being filled by the power of two emeralds breaking down the barriers of his mind, opening the floodgates of memories, it was the worst, most painful experience of his life and, yet, the greatest, he knew who he was, what had happened to him, his mind was complete.

He remembered taking his father's bandolier of knifes, returning to craft that had brought him here, stepping back into the 'tomb', and slaughtering all of those creatures, killing every last one of the triangle eyed, multi-limbed freaks that had changed him into a monster.

He had then taken a mind wiper and sealed away all his memories before entombing himself within the last pod in the main lab.

The energy released when his mind clicked into completion caused a surge of chaos energy in the field which teleported him back to the lab in the tomb, and from there, after he had regained his breath, he warped to Angel Island.

But, the build up of chaos energy in the tomb had some adverse effects; the mutated creatures left in the specimen labs had been the next stage of the abductors experiments to create the ultimate super soldier, loyal, powerful and able to tap into local power sources, in this case chaos energy.

Specimen 01149 had been the last before Kiraol's massacre; he was the culmination of their research. In the bowels of the tomb the chaos energy caused a spark in the equipment and 01149's black eyes snapped open.

Kir was sitting on the edge of the island, legs hanging over the lip, he had been fishing for about three hours and had caught 7 fish, though he had caught 8 but he ate one for lunch about an hour ago. He was thinking about his future, after he had got his entire memory back he had warped up to ARK with Miira. After avoiding having his head split by Knuckles, still angry with him destroying most of the island's echidna civilisation, he told his old friend what had happened after he freed Knuckles up till he was discovered on the floating island about a week ago.

Knuckles decided to show Kir something on the island, so, leaving his trainees Ray the Squirrel, Mighty the Armadillo and Bean the Dynamite to look after the master emerald, he teleported down to he island, a mile into the lava reef system.

Cursing the transporter he led the three of them, Kir, himself and Miira, to the hidden palace and showed them what was keeping the island afloat without the Master Emerald or the super emeralds. Almost 2,000 green chaos drives had been connected together in the shape of the Master emerald, and the huge structure was sitting on the central pedestal as groups of about 700 of each colour of chaos drive sat in the super emerald columns, the supers having been transformed into pure chaos energy to power Hyper Sonic when he braved doomsday to retrieve the master emerald.

In a small, semi-official ceremony, Knuckles handed over guardianship of the island to Kir, Knuckles had sworn to protect the master emerald and was now to guard ARK instead of the island. Before he departed he gave Kir a strange, watch-like device, the island control key, Kir could now unlock the controls to drive the island.

Knuckles returned to ARK, he didn't think his trainee guardians very competent so short had their training been so far, and left Kir and Miira to their island.

Now Kir had sank the island closer to sea level and was fishing, contemplating what to do with himself now he was the island's guardian when he felt the air around him begin to heat up,

"Hi Flare," he said as he heard the faint noise of someone floating beside him.

Flare was the orange and red hedgehog Kir had released from the tomb before rescuing Miira, and had found his experimentation had given him the power to manipulate the heat of the air around him, but his personal 'airspace' remained so hot that he could not touch the ground, instead he walked on a cushion of hot air, of to move faster he skated along.

A little hot headed he had the problem of his 'airspace' responding to his emotions, the angrier or more exited he got the hotter his 'airspace' became.

"Heh, you caught me, Miira says come back, I think she's gettin' lonely" Flare said, attempting to sit next to Kir, ending up floating about two inches off the ground.

Kir smiled, "anyone would think we were married or something" he remarked, "does she want me to bring back the fish?"

Flare smiled at his friend, "I think so, and you never know, you could get…" he started

"Flare! There is nothing that intimate between us, we're childhood friends" Kir cut him off

"You never know, anyway, homeward bound then?" Flare said, getting up

"Yeah, yeah, just tell her I'll be back shortly, I've got to finish up here" Kir replied, reeling in his line, waving in the general direction of 'The Camp' as the small settlement where they all lived had become known

"Aye sir" said Flare, giving a mock salute before pinching a small fish and skating away

Kir shook his head and bundled all his things together, he didn't feel that way about Miira, did he? He had to admit she was pretty, and she did make him feel so… he shook his head, she was an old friend, not a love interest, anyway, he was a freak, who would love a creature like himself?

Yet hadn't Miira been experimented on as well? Or had she? She only remembered being dragged away from The Mist then being jabbed with a needle, the next thing she remembered was Kir staring at her through the glass of the containment tube. She might not have been touched; Flare might have been the last experiment they did before Kir killed them all.

He had been walking while he thought and found himself back at 'The Camp' in no time.

"Kir, we're all by the roasting pits, bring the fish then" came Miira's voice, snapping him out of his thoughts. The settlement had used roasting pits to cook food in as the whole population of about 20 gathered round to help cook and swap stories.

"I got 6 big fish, what else is cooking?" asked Kir, taking a seat next to Miira as he placed the fish next to the pits, one of that night's cooks, a large, red furred fox, speared one on a spit and began to roast it over the fire.

"We got's steak, fruit, bread and vegetables, along with these fish" replied the fox as he cooked.

After dinner Kir turned in for the night with Miira still in his thoughts, his dreams were mixes of nightmarish flashbacks, Miira, the mutated specimens in the tomb and chaos energy.

01149, Claws as it had named itself, had roused others from there sleep and had left the safety of the tomb, they left to feed.


	7. 7 Sonic

Mist 

_I will just fade away_

_I fade away_

_Just like I was never here_

_I will just fade away_

_I fade away_

_Leaving nothing behind_

Sonic had had a relatively calm week since the loss of the chaos emerald to the Mist creature, and he was bored stiff. He had tried numerous things to amuse himself, taking the rebuilt Tornado out for a fly, wing walking when Tails flew it, air-boarding in Windy Valley, Snowboarding in the Mountains (he preferred the Ice Cap mountains on Angel Island), even racing the police on Speed Highway, but he couldn't find the thrill of adventure he had had during the Metal Overlord Fiasco, his latest adventure, where the main perpetrator had not been Robotnik, but his second Mecha class robot, Metal Sonic.

He had been released from a stasis tube in Final Egg, and had copied the data of the 'Teams' formed to beat him, Team Hero (Sonic, Knuckles and Tails), Team Dark (Shadow, E-124 'Omega' and Rouge), the Chaotix Detectives (former members of Knuckes' Chaotix; Espio, Vector and Charmy) and Team Rose (Amy, Big and Cream).

It had taken Super Sonic and Demi-Super versions of his teammates to defeat Metal Overlord, a mutated version of Metal Sonic having used Chaos' data (Taken from Big's friend Froggy) to transform.

Now Sonic was itching for a new adventure but the eggman, Dr Robotnik, had been suspiciously quiet, even to the point of towing away the wrecks of the two Egg Carriers that had been floating in the waters off the shores of Station Square and the Mystic Ruins since the Chaos incident.

"Hey, Sonic!" came Tails' voice as the little fox flew over to Sonic, the blue hedgehog was reclining in a chair outside the hotel he stayed at while in Station Square

"What's up Tails?" he said to his sidekick as he landed beside him

"The island," Said Tails, joking with Sonic a bit, "Angel Island was spotted off the Emerald Coast late last night"

Sonic frowned, "But isn't Knux and the M.E. still onboard the ARK?" the blue hedgehog asked his friend

Tails nodded, "As far as I know, yes. Want to fly out and take a look?" he said with a sideways glance at his hero

Sonic responded by jumping up, grabbing Tails' wrist and running to the train station, "It's too far for you to fly, so we'll take the Tornado from your airstrip" Sonic said as they seated themselves on the train headed for the Mystic Ruins.

Tails had purchased a bit of land in Mystic Ruins that jutted out over the sea, he had converted this into a plane workshop and airstrip for the Tornado, Tornado 2 and the Cyclone.

"Sonic, wouldn't it be better to take the Cyclone? There might be a hostile presence on the island, better to have the walker instead of just you" Tails said as Sonic started to the little, red, jet-powered bi-plane at the far end of the parking lot

"What do you mean JUST me?" Sonic called back, turning from his plane to look at the Cyclone, a hurt expression on his face

Tails grinned, "I mean so many Badniks that not even you could take them ALL out" he called back as Sonic began walking towards the blue plane, slumping to try and seen defeated

"OK Tails, you win" he said in a mock sad voice, he looked up with a grin on his face, "But I get to be gunner"

The Cyclone Taxied out onto the small runway, activated the jet engines and flew off towards the floating Angel Island, Tails piloting, Sonic sitting behind the Vulkan cannon mounted on the back.

The flight lasted about half an hour before the beach came into sight, and, with a sense of Deja Vu, Sonic and Tails landed before the thick palms of the jungle, the Cyclone converting to walker mode.

They didn't see any sign that Robotnik was here, no monkey Badniks throwing exploding coconuts from the trees, to rhino Badniks turbo charging them, no nothing, just the damp, musty smell of the jungle and the sounds associated with it.

Sonic shielded his eyes against the sun and saw a figure making its way towards them, it looked vaguely hedgehog shaped, and appeared to be moving across the ground at tremendous speed, the movement of its arms appeared to suggest it was...skating?

Sonic's heart leapt, could it be Shadow? The two of them had grown close in the short time they were together (and on the same side) aboard the ARK, they had viewed each other as something akin to brothers, but when he met Shadow again he had lost his memories of those few minutes in space, glowing golden with the power of the emeralds, he had even forgot Maria, the driving force behind his motives, Sonic did not all together trust the new Shadow.

As the figure drew nearer it resolved itself, it was not Shadow, it was an orange and red hedgehog, wearing black shoes with a strip of red encircling the middle, floating, and skating, roughly 2 inches off the ground.

"Hiya, how are you? I'm Flare," said the hedgehog as he skidded to a halt in front of the Cyclone, surrounded by an aura of shimmering air.

"Hi, I'm Sonic, this is Tails" Sonic said, gesturing to the Fox at the walker's controls

Flare nodded, his eyes widening and his shimmering aura growing, Sonic was beginning to feel quite hot

"Ah, so you're Sonic, Kir mentioned you" Flare shrugged "Oh well, come on" he said and began to Skate away. He stopped and turned back to the bewildered duo " well come on, 'The Camp' is this way"

Tails set the Cyclone to moving and they followed the skating hedgehog through the jungle to a clearing ringed by huts with big pits dug in the centre, Flare stopped and turned to the two newcomers,

"Welcome to 'The Camp', our home. Kir is this way, come on, I'd just leave the contraption if I were you."

Sonic and Tails left the Cyclone, Tails activating security measures before he walked off towards the hut Flare had indicated.

---

Kir was sitting in hiss hut, studying a chaos drive and jotting down notes, an idea forming in his mind.

" Hey Kir, someone to see you" came Flare's voice from the doorway

Kir waved a gloved hand over his shoulder, "send 'em in" he said, not looking up from his research, he heard feet walking in, "I'm kinda busy right now so could you make it quick?" he told them, jumping when a familiar voice answered.

---

Sonic and Tails reached the hut as a voice inside said, "Send 'em in", and Flare motioned towards the door. They stepped inside and saw a white Echidna with hints of green in his dreadlocks sat at a desk, writing something, chaos drives stood in a rack beside him, there was even a few rare and expensive blue chaos drives.

The Echidna spoke to them without looking up from what he was doing, "I'm kinda busy right now so could you make it quick?" he said, then almost jumped out of his skin when Sonic spoke, "So you're Kir?" the echidna stood and turned, revealing a necklace set with a shard of green crystal.

"Sonic, what're you doing here?" Kir said

"I could ask the same of you, Mist," replied Sonic, remembering their last encounter

Kir sat back down and motioned for them to sit as well, " My name is Kiraol, but most people call me Kir, I am now guardian of Angel Island, my old home. I freed the others here from the same tomb I had imprisoned myself in, now, your turn" he said, the last line feeling slightly familiar in his mouth, he grinned slightly at Sonic, who understood completely and grinned back.

"We saw Angel Island off of Emerald Coast and thought maybe Robotnik had taken over so we flew here to investigate" he said, gaining a raised eyebrow from Kir

"Robotnik, who's he?" Kir asked, puzzled

"Fat guy, big moustache, practically lives in a little hovercraft," said Sonic

"He looks like an egg with legs," chirped in Tails, Sonic turned and looked at him, "What? Its true"

Kir laughed a bit, "now I know who you mean, I saw someone like that getting smashed out of said hovercraft by a black hedgehog the other day" he told them

Sonic looked up, "Black hedgehog? Did he look like me but with spiked up spines and red highlights?" he asked, "where was he?"

Kir nodded, "yup, friend of yours? As to where he was...I don't know, some mansion with a bat girl and a robot"

Sonic took this info in, Rouge and 'Omega', so Team Dark still existed then. Sonic stood up, "Nice to properly meet you Kir, sorry to have disturbed you" he said as Tails got up and they both began to leave.

"No problem" Said Kir, "You're free to come here whenever you want, just tell us you're here, OK?" he told them as they left

Sonic waved from the door, "Thanks, bye" and then he was gone and Kir got back to his research, if he could tap into the energy of the drives...

---

Claws and the other creatures had snared more victims that night and ate well as they scouted out the land. Their mission, avenge the creators, destroy the destroyer and everything he held dear.

It wasn't until a week later that the missing persons were reported in the newspaper, and the creatures began to get bolder...


	8. 8 Chaos Burn

Mist 

_Within the storm of chaos_

_Is an eye of order_

_A point of calm_

_In a swirling maelstrom_

Kir looked up as a small red bi-plane flew over, Sonic delivering the mail. He had decided that Kir should be kept up to date with what had been happening so he gave him issues of 'Station Standard', Station Square's newspaper, that had articles about the Chaos incident and 'Central Chronicle' dealing with the ARK incident, he had been air-dropping the mail for about a week now.

Kir strode to the centre of 'The Camp' and retrieved the drop case that Tails put the papers in, taking it back to his hut as the settlement's population began to gather around, they had been requesting papers and magazines in the airdrops so Kir now had the unofficial duty of handing out the mail.

When they had all been dished out he unfolded the 'Station Standard' and began to read. Apparently people had begun to go missing from the areas surrounding Mystic Ruins, some of the first disappearance had been found…chewed off, where the rest of the person had gone, no one knew but people were speculating about things from 'dumb' animals to a second Chaos monster. Kir looked at the area the pieces had been found, and frowned, he remembered his path from the tomb, the disappearances were around that area, had something else been awakened in the tomb? Had those idiot explorers returned and set loose some other monster he had missed?

Kir sat down with a sigh, what did it matter to him? He was guardian of the island, not the mainland, but it was the Tomb, he had probably been responsible for capturing whatever was prowling Mystic Ruins.

He picked an object off his desk; he had been creating it specially and had finished a prototype, now to find…

"Hey Kir, you gotta' see this, something exploded in Mushroom Hill" came Flare's voice just as a pulse of chaos energy registered on Kir's senses

"What the? Flare? What was that? Did you feel that?" Kir said, his fur standing on end from the chaos energy, "Hey Flare, I got something for you" he continued, holding up the object

"Yeah, I felt it" said Flare, his quills all standing up like spears, "What you got?" he asked

Flare looked, Kir was holding a chain with a large pendant on it, the pendant was roughly hexagonal, with two long sides, under the point that the chain attached to. In the middle of the hexagon was,

"A red chaos drive?" asked Flare, not understanding

Kir put the necklace on Flare, "It's a small chaos drive I acquired, usually used for smaller robots, news probes and such like, but I built this converter, you can use the energy in the chaos drive to boost your abilities, you could run faster, or burn hotter, or float higher, or something, but its small and using it drains it quite a lot, its only a prototype"

Flare stood, a confused look on his face as he took the information in, then he nodded, "I got it, so it's like your emerald shard then?" Kir nodded and indicated the on switch in the converter

"Yeah, so what about Mushroom Hill?" Kir asked, walking out of the hut behind Flare

Dunno, something happened, wanna go see?" flare said bracing himself for a run, turning the converter on, feeling the converter stick to his chest, and power seeping through.

Kir gave him the thumbs up and began to run.

Flare blasted off in a swirl of red energy, catching up and passing Kir in a few seconds, Kir speeding up to following the red, skating blur that was Flare on chaos energy. Kir had to tap into the emerald shard and let its power into him to continue to keep up with Flare, the chaos drive fuelling the energies that the experiments had placed in Flare's streamlined body.

By the time they reached the area in Mushroom hill the glow had died and the chaos drive was an empty glass cylinder with a shard of quartz in the centre.

"Well…" Panted Kir "I think…it works…then…"

"Yeah, look, there it is" said Flare, pointing to a bare patch of ground that looked like something had scoured everything from the area.

In the centre sat a red gem, half the size of a football, lying on one faceted side. It resembled the chaos emerald that sat on a small pedestal in Kir's hut, except it was red, and appeared to be lit from within by a raging inferno.

Kir concentrated on the emerald shard in the pendant on his chest, he felt himself slip into a calm, pale mistform, and a small ripple of chaos energy sparked across his being every now and again.

He stretched out with his mind as he had been trained to, feeling towards the red chaos emerald, his consciousness touched the crystal…and was caught in the violent tempest of energies that swirled around the inside of the gem. It was a chaos storm, so powerful that order seemed not to exist at all.

Kir screamed as his mind was smashed around in a tempest of chaos energies, his body becoming wracked with energy pulses, shifting between forms. Then he was flung from the emerald, passing over a pinprick-sized eye of order within the tornado of chaos that ruled the emerald.

When Kir finally snapped back to fully solid, Flare began to stride towards the emerald, reaching down to pick it up, gloved fingers stretching closer and closer…

"Flare, no! Don't touch it!" yelled Kir, too little, too late as Flare's fingers gripped the side of the emerald.

Flare screamed as the destructive power flooded his sensitive system, building and building, the power swelling, increasing. Flare fell to the ground, muscles frozen in place around the emerald, unable to let go as chaos fire played over his spines, scorching the ground he was knelt on,

"Kir…i…its going to explode…run, RUN!" He yelled, floating off the ground as his 'airspace' expanded with the influx of power. He saw that Kir had begun to run away, back to 'The Camp', and wrenched himself to his feet, skating away from 'The Camp' as fast as he could, his speed increasing as he ran, power pouring into him, speeding him up, increasing the size and heat of his 'airspace'. The air became almost solid, pushing at his body, trying to stop him…then he burst through it and was moving faster that he had ever gone in his life before, and his speed was still increasing. Had anyone been behind him they would have heard a sonic boom as the frantic, chaos charged hedgehog shattered the sound barrier.

Flare ran in as straight a line as he could, then, suddenly, found he was launching off a ramp at twice the speed of sound, sailing over Mushroom Hill, looking for somewhere to land.

He spread himself out, his 'airspace' acting like a parachute, slowing his decent as he spotted the desert of Sandopolis, he could do no damage there, so he pressed his legs together and flattened his arms to his side, the gem in his right hand digging into his leg, and shot towards the desert at terminal velocity.

As the ground approached he spread himself wide again, slowing down as his 'airspace' deployed, due to this he hit the ground much slower than he would have, but the impact still knocked him out, the state of unconsciousness breaking the fragile dam keeping the majority of chaos energy in the emerald, this was released as an explosion.

---

01149, 'Claws', was sensitive to the chaos energy around him, so when the white chaos emerald shimmered into existence before him he pounced on it, throwing away the grizzly remains he had been chewing on.

He clutched it in his hand and allowed the energy to flow into his body, unlike Kir, Flare, Sonic, Shadow and pretty much everyone else who had used the emeralds, he did not construct a barrier, stopping where he could control the chaos, Claws surrendered himself to the chaos, absorbing all the power and entrusting itself to the whims of chaos, wind howling around it as the emeralds power was unleashed. It didn't realise it was ding this though, it was just absorbing a huge amount of energy, absorbing the solid emerald itself as well, a large white crystal appearing on its forehead.

The amount of energy it had absorbed caused Claws to become chaos charged, its dreadlocks floating up, the static generating causing them to curve upwards instead of downwards, it also allowed his body to float above the ground.

A smile spread across the monster's fearsome visage as he bared its teeth and sped out to hunt some more, it was almost time.

---

Flare woke up on a cold, hard, surface, his 'airspace' was spread around him thinner than tissue paper. The unheated air was burning his lungs, despite the fact he was in a desert he began to shiver, not used to not having the warmth of his 'airspace' surrounding him.

The chaos emerald was still clutched in his hand; he opened it, the emerald stayed in his palm. He pulled it and it came away with his glove, the rest of the singed material disintegrating. Pain shot through his hand, and he saw it had been badly burned by the emerald's power, the scorched nerves screaming now they were exposed to the gritty air of Sandopolis.

Flare sat up and stared, for a kilometre in every direction was glass, the extreme heat put out by the destructive emerald had turned the sand to glass, this phenomenon probably extended for a kilometre downwards as well, he was sitting on a massive glass hemisphere.

Flare struggled to his feet and something bumped against his chest, he looked down at the chaos drive converter, the chaos drive had been shattered and the converter was bent and twisted, Kir wouldn't be happy about that. Speaking of Kir, which way was it to 'The Camp'? Flare looked at his imprint and began to walk, not skate or float; his 'airspace' was too thin for that and it was a strange experience, in the opposite direction to what his imprint was facing, walking away with the now calm chaos emerald held in his good hand.

Thinking of how fast he had been going, and how far he had gone, Flare's shoulders sagged, he sighed, this was going to be a long walk.


	9. 9 Dreams

Mist The green is 'order' 

_The red, pure chaos_

Kir heard the sonic boom as he raced back towards 'The Camp'; he knew that the emerald was pushing Flare further and faster than he had ever been, he could now remember what Knuckles' father had told him during his emerald training.

He had been told that, as the green master controls them all, the green chaos emerald controls the other six and was the most ordered of them all, the least dangerous to use and usually the easiest. The red was the opposite, ruled by chaos, violent, destructive, harmful to its user, only the most skilled, or those attuned to it, could wield it.

He had to find where Flare had gone, that would be hard for he was heading towards 'The Camp' and Flare had been moving away faster than the speed of sound, he could use the camera-probe he had bought for the chaos drive, but the amount of chaos energy now around the island would fry it. He could search with his energy sense, but that would take to long…or he could for the emerald search using the green one!

Kir picked up the pace, he had to get home first, and he was standing in Mushroom Hill! He had a way to go, about 15 minutes jog, he was too tired to run or use the chaos shard, but he could jog fast enough.

He chided himself, he should have warned Flare before attempting to read the emerald, he should have been faster, he grunted at his argument, in that case he should have been faster in escaping the tomb with knuckles, he should have been faster in hitting the ship, there were should haves he should have done, but there was no point berating himself for what could have been.

Kir got back to 'The Camp' late that afternoon, only his will pushing him onwards into his hut, he had used more energy that he thought he had that day, he thought as he collapsed in exhaustion just inside his hut.

He came to later, he was lying in his hammock inside his hut, as he looked around he saw Miira slumped in a chair beside him, she was asleep. Kir looked outside and saw darkness and stars, he hoped Flare had found somewhere for the night, and wondered where he had ended up, he sighed and turned to Miira, picking her up from the chair and carrying her next door to her hut, Flare's words in his head, 'You could you know…' he looked down at Miira, wondering, he had known her all his childhood, he had been with her most of hers, but they had both been locked up in the Tomb for the years that they might have spent together seeing each other in _that_ way, but she had always stirred feelings within him, he wondered what she thought of him, and again he reached the argument of how anyone could possibly love what he had become, and had she been experimented on? She didn't seem to display any of the traits the experiments produced.

He sighed, and gently placed Miira in her hammock, putting a blanket over her when a cold wind blew through the door, and, before he turned and left, kissed her forehead.

---

Miira had looked into Kir's hut at lunch, but didn't see him; she hadn't seen him since the mail that morning. She sighed and returned to the pits to get some lunch and then went back into her hut for a bit before getting up, closing the door and pinning a note to it, she had decided to go for a walk in the forest and had left a message for Kir on her door.

She frowned as she left 'The Camp', Kir had promised to take her hiking up to the Ice Cap Mountains today but he had just disappeared, well, maybe she could ask him tomorrow. She thought about Kir, she had had a crush on him back before she was abducted by Mist, it amused her to see him blush when he called for her because he would get teased about it by the other boys, which is why he would usually only open up around Miira and Knuckles.

She had been terrified when Mist abducted her, but all she could remember after Kir trying to save her was being drugged, then blackness, then seeing a green Kir staring at her through the glass of the tube she was in. she still had a crush on Kir but he seemed to have closed up, maybe it was something to do with being under the creatures control and betraying them, or maybe it was to do with his powers of Mistform, she didn't know what it was but it stopped her getting to him, and she wanted to tell him her feelings, but she was scared, before she was scared that he would just run away, now she was scared that he might just clam up and not speak to her again.

Her walk had taken her around and back to 'The Camp' just before dinner. She didn't see Kir around the pits so got food for them both and walked over to his hut, almost tripping over his prone form on the floor.

She set aside the two plates and reached down to try and lift Kir off the floor, to her surprise she did, and carried him over to his hammock, putting him in it she pulled up a chair and sat, ate her dinner, and waited for Kir to wake up and tell her what had happened.

She fell asleep long before Kir awoke, and dreamed of a hike up Ice Cap with Kir, they talked all the way up, and when they reached the top Kir took Miira's hand and they flew from the top of the mountains beck to home, she dreamed that before he left, Kir gave her a kiss on the forehead, she yelled her love after him and he simply said "I know, so do I".

---

Flare had been walking for the rest of the day and his energy began to slowly come back to him, his 'airspace' warmed up so he could breath comfortably, but it wasn't enough to allow him to skate. He had put four maybe five miles between himself and the giant area of glass he had created and had reached the outskirts of some ruins near the edge of the desert by nightfall and took shelter in a ruined house for the night.

He had come to the conclusion that he liked deserts in the day, but that desert night were horrible, with the minimal heat from his 'airspace' the desert night made Flare think he was sleeping on top of the Ice Cap Mountains.

In the morning Flare woke, cold and hungry, but just stood up and walked away, knowing that there was no food in these ruins. He sighed, oh well, another day, another distance, and sitting here wouldn't get him home. He found that he floated about an inch from the ground and decided to skate out of the desert, bad move. The air he skated on blew the sand up all around him, he couldn't see, he could barely breath, he jumped, hit the ground outside the sandstorm he had stirred up and began to walk again, he appeared to be hoofing it all the way out of here it seemed.

---

Claws had decided that now was the time, the experiments were ready, the mission would start.

He stood outside the tomb and let his chaos-enhanced senses find the chaos pattern of the one they hunted, he found the pattern in the tomb and traced its path. He found where it had been for the past week or two, it appeared to be quite a way away. He called up 00319, an experiment who used to be a bird, now its wings were leathery, its neck had changed, its beak was razor sharp, as were the talons on both its feet and wings.

Claws directed it to find the pattern, and destroy it, 'Talons' nodded his green eyed head and took flight, headed for the Floating Island, and the chaos pattern.


	10. 10 Birth of Final Mecha

Mist 

_Only Gods can control Chaos,_

_Us mere mortals can only wield it_

'Talons' flew across the ocean, headed for the floating Angel Island, when he spied something strange; he informed Claws and the others via a sub-telepathic link the Masters installed within their experiments.

'_01149, self has discovered strange construction in ocean, created of many structures. Few life forms but much movement, Masters signal detected within, should self investigate?' _he told Claws

Claws thought for a moment, _'Negative 00319, proceed with mission, self will send other to investigate'_

As 01149 sent this he turned to the others around the tomb, "00666, you are to investigate construction discovered by 00319, rescue Masters signal if possible" came Claws' raspy voice in the gloom, the jewel on his forehead glowing faintly

00666, 'Dragon' rose to his feet, "Self will comply" came a hissing, serpentine voice as the experiment in question turned and left the tomb.

---

The problem with the link was that it was only rudimentary, and everyone connected to the network got the message, so even the non-physically mutated experiments received 00319's message, and 01149's answer.

Kir was asleep at the time and the message found its way into his dream, along with visions of who was speaking. He saw 'Talons' as he spoke and when 'Claws' replied got a quick flash of a creature with bulging muscles, tendons and blood vessels standing out like ropes on its flesh, he saw the glimmer above its black eyes and saw the dreadlocks that now permanently stood up in the air, so charged with chaos energy was this creature.

---

Flare, trudging across the desert of Sandopolis received the message as a voice in his head, the emerald in his hand glowed and, had he looked down, displayed who was speaking, but Flare didn't see this, he just gleamed 00319's intentions, a quick flash of Angel Island, and of Kir's mistform wearing armour.

Fearing that Kir was in danger, Flare began to pick up the pace and found himself at the old emerald shrine, a local landmark, he was almost home.

Turning towards the path that led away from the shrine he began to skate, speeding off down the ancient path towards the marble garden ruins

---

00666, 'Dragon' began to slowly winging his way towards the Masters signal that 00319 had discovered, he could see the construction, it looked like a mass of different machines and walkways cobbled together, either floating on the water or embedded in the seafloor.

Looking for some way in Dragon felt the energy output of a powerplant, the tactical planning in his past life coming back to him as he prepared his diversion.

---

Dr Robotnik was standing in the part of the complex known as the Mecha lab, he stood in front of a new creation and began it's boot up.

He had created this place, Wreck Base by salvaging old bases and huge machines from different areas, the main part of the base that stood above the waterline was constructed out of the ruins of both Egg Carriers and as much of Final Egg base as could be salvaged, including his two display pods, one of which now stood broken and empty.

He had retrieved the remains of The Death Egg and Wing Fortress for the main undersea supports, along with dismantling Scrap Brain Zone and retrieving the remains of Flying Battery from Angel Island.

Robotnik looked around the Mecha lab, there were five main stations and he was standing at the sixth.

Station 1 held a tube that contained Mecha Bot 1, 'Silver Sonic', Robotnik's first attempt at an imitation Sonic, it was manoeuvrable, could do a few of Sonic's moves but it was built more for power, not speed, and couldn't keep up with its flesh and blood counterpart.

Mecha Bot 2, 'Metal Sonic MKI' was empty, only a few pieces had been found when the egg-shaped scientist had sneaked onto the island, not enough to rebuild the destroyed robot. It had been a bulkier, slower robot, with greater AI than that of Silver Sonic, and had been lent one of Robotnik's old Eggmobiles with a few attachments. It had even been able to absorb energy from the Master Emerald but Knuckles had defeated it.

Mecha Bot 3, 'Metal Sonic MKII' had been built as a speed rival to Sonic, smaller, sleeker and faster than the previous Mecha Bots it had almost beaten Sonic in a race to the death on the Stardust Speedway during Robotnik's time takeover of Little Planet, but an accident destroyed it, Robotnik rebuilt MKII to help during his Chaos Ring Experiment, he had installed a battle mode this time around that allowed MKII to morph into a giant, red version of himself, but he was destroyed by Knuckle's Chaotix.

The MKII design was to good to let rest and the doc rebuilt MKII, giving it an amazingly advanced AI and upgraded the 'Metal Overlord function' as the battle mode became named; he was tested during the World Grand Prix along with Mecha Bots 4 & 5, but was beaten by Super Sonic in the final race. This MKIII had been stored in Final Egg along with Silver Sonic but broke out, locked up Robotnik, took over a city and almost unleashed the Egg Fleet on the world before he was defeated by Team Super, MKIII's whereabouts are unknown.

Mecha Bot 4, 'Metal Knuckles' was build to combat its organic counterpart in the same way Metal Sonic MKII was, by attacking him with his own strength. It was tested in the World Grand Prix and Metal Knuckles turned out to be faster that even MKIII due to the four thrusters in its dreadlocks but was beaten in the final race by Super Sonic. Metal Knuckles' whereabouts are unknown.

Mecha Bot 5, 'Tails Doll' was Dr Robotnik's first foray into the occult, a robotic skeleton structure with basic AI had a fake fur hull stretched over the skeletal chassis, powered and driven by supernatural forces, channelled by the crystal on its head, its blank expression and eerie floating stance creeped even Robotnik out. It was tested in the World Grand Prix and was faster that its organic counterpart but was beaten in the final race by Super Sonic.

The supernatural forces that powered the Tails Doll teleported it away after the race for their own purposes and it hasn't been seen since.

Halfway into the Boot Up all the power shorted out, including Mecha Bot 6 who was being run off of the base's central power system & when the backup turned on a large chunk of the boot up had been skipped, the software corrupted.

The robot the egg-shaped genius stood before was about 6 or 7 inches shorter than the average human, painted silver and red with a gold trim. Its red head was curved in front and swept back to a silver point, the base of which was lined with gold paint, the point was, at this moment, open to allow access for the modem cable that was feeding software into the Robot's Learning Matrix MKII AI, an upgrade of the version used in Metal Sonic MKIII. On either side of the head sat two raised parts, like rectangles angled 45 degrees downwards, these sloped up from the front and curved back into the head after a flat part, these were the machine's eyes. The two rectangles were connected by a wide strip of silver that ran under the front of the head.

The head sat on a small, silver torso that was roughly T shaped, with smooth, red, curved armour sloping down from the neck to about 1/3 of the way down the torso, it stopped just above an empty spherical socket, curved halfway round on both sides and connected back to the torso with two curving armour plates.

Two domed, red shoulder pads, edged with gold, sat atop two thick arms, the silver upper arms short and almost round, the lower arm a wide, red cylinder just after the elbow, edged at either end with gold paint, which then became a fat spike. A tube sprouted from under the right shoulder pad and fed into the right cylinder. There was some red, skirt-like armour below the torso that was edged with gold and defended the silver upper part of the legs, the lower part defended by red greave-like armour plating, knee pads attached to the top of these greaves and the spike on the end of the arm fell to the point where the red, gold edged kneepad joins the greave.

The silver feet tapered down into two, flattened spike, toes on each foot and in the heel was a black wheel, similar to Silver Sonic's.

On its back was a wide, flat space with connectors for something to attach and plugged into the spherical port on the front was a cable that connected to the main power supply. The boot up completed, Dr Robotnik changed the 'Mains' cable for Mecha Bot 6's power supply, an alien power source that Robotnik found in the ruins of an ancient tomb.

He inserted the yellow orb and four claw fixtures slid out and locked it in place like a gemstone in a ring.

Yellow circles appeared on the rectangular panels on the sides of its head and the machine began to see.

Mecha Bot 6 looked around at his surroundings, the Learning Matrix recording and analyzing everything, it heard a voice and turned to look at the round, vaguely egg-shaped body of its creator, it looked up and saw its creator's moustached face, shaded eyes and bald, goggled head.

"I am Dr Robotnik, your brilliant creator and your Master, you are to obey only me, you are Mecha Bot 6, codenamed 'Final Mecha', or just 'Mecha' for short" Said Robotnik, initiating the robot's protocol

"Self unit…I. I am Mecha Bot 6 'Mecha'" Replied Mecha, figuring out that one described Self Unit as I. He ran a search on the other 5 Mecha Bots, downloading and storing the data to view later. Master registration, however, failed. During the power-out the system was installing the master registration failsafe, but the system crashed and Master registration and Obedience circuits were corrupted beyond all repair, so Robotnik registered as creator, but not master. Mecha had Free Will, if only partially and not realised.

Robotnik rubbed his hands together in glee, this robot learnt fast. "OK Mecha, these cylinders, apart from being your arms, are canisters of Nanites, you can access data on them via System Core. They can form into pre-programmed patterns, creating different mechanisms. Try it, open Nano-guard plates, retract spike, disassemble, activate 'hand' program, deploy hand mechanism" said Robotnik, eager to test this robot's systems.

Mecha did this, the spike splitting into 8 sections that slid back along the side of the cylinder, leaving a thin pole with a small spike, the tip of the other, on the end. This retracted into the cylinder and the Nanites that made up the structure disengaged, returning to the collective. The Nanites then followed the 'Hand' program, forming a dexterous hand and deploying it out of the cylinder.

Mecha stared at the hand, his Matrix noting how to use it, curious he deployed his left hand without prompting from the creator, noting the differences, intrigued.

Robotnik chuckled, this was one smart robot, it had already shown curiosity, and it had anticipated his next command. Phase 2, "Mecha, retract right hand and activate 'Plasma rifle' program, then…" he began

"Deploy" Finished Mecha, his right hand already returning to the nanite collective in his arm, he initiated 'plasma rifle' program and deployed the gun, his right 'eye' circle becoming a crosshair, Mecha's HUD gained an Ammo counter for the rifle and a targeting display. Intrigued he began locking on to things, his arm automatically raising and pointing the rifle at the targeted item, he targeted everything in the immediate vicinity, except the creator, and then lowered his weapon, waiting for the next command.

Robotnik was about to explain the rifle when a comm-unit activated and a sentry drone reported an unidentified attacker on the launch deck. Robotnik considered sending out one of the E.G.G.s, but the only finished ones were already deployed, and unit 01 had been destroyed. He grinned and turned to Mecha, "Mecha, I have a mission for you, Equip your jump-pack, it's over there, then get to the launch deck, we have an uninvited guest, destroy it" he commanded

"Aye, aye sir" replied Mecha, disengaging the modem in his head, closing the spike and cutting himself off from System Core. He attached the jump pack, it looked like a mirror of his torso armour but it had two shield-like wings, the length of his leg, mounted vertically equipped with thrusters, the pack was red and the red 'wings' were edged with gold paint.

Mecha activated the jump-pack, hovering on his toes. He slid his flattened spike toes to the sides, locking them into place on either side of his foot, and jetted out of the lab, consulted the map in his mainframe, and headed off to the launch deck.


	11. 11 Boss: 00666 'Dragon'

Mist

_ Sometimes, you have to bleed_

_ Just to know you're alive_

Whilst Final Mecha was making his way up from the bowls of the base, 00666 'Dragon' was having fun just destroying the guards Robotnik had stationed onboard, they were constructed as a rectangular platform with legs on either side and two chainguns slung underneath, they weren't very smart and even the enslaved intelligence of a Mecha bot could figure out their attack pattern.

Dragon could sense the masters signal around somewhere, but his progress below deck was hindered by the wreckage of guards bots, too many for Dragon to shift. He sat and sensed, the signal was moving, headed up towards him, maybe it was trying to escape, dragon was considering hailing it over the network when chaingun rounds sparked into the ground, more guards had arrived.

Mecha had come to the exit up to the deck, but the door wouldn't open, the amount of weight sitting ontop of it was hindering it, thinking quickly Mecha searched his databanks for more nanite commands, and found 'plasma cutter' program, his scan showed the ceiling to be a metre and a half thick.

The plasma rife was returned to the collective and the claw-like shape of the plasma cutter rose from the cylinder, Mecha ignited the central flame and the claw closed on it, plasma and electricity jumping from clawtip to clawtip, causing the plasma flame to belch forth great pulsed of plasma, raising the claw to the roof Mecha began to cut.

Dragon looked around just in time to see the final belch of plasma jet out of the floor, the large slab then sank into the ground and a red robot rose from the hole, it's right, claw like hand slid into its arm and a gun barrel slid out, the strange thing was that the master signal was emanating from this contraption, dragon looked at it, and saw the pulsing yellow orb set in its chest. He snarled, the nerve of this mechanical contraption, holding a masters signal prisoner, it must be destroyed.

Mecha jetted out of the hole and landed on deck, scanning the organism before him. Bi-pedal with a large muscular body, muscular arms and legs to mach, with three-inch claws adorning hands and feet. The creature had a wedge shaped head with curving horns rising from the back and slit pupils in its red eyes, along with a pair of wings rising from its back.

The creature gave a snarl and Mecha targeted its wings, waiting for it to make the first move…the creature charged, opening its wings to take flight, Mecha blasted at the target, a glowing purple teardrop of energy flew from the rifles barrel, the vents positioned along its length steamed as superheated air was pushed out of them.

Dragon screamed in agony as the fire destroyed his right wing membrane, hitting the centre and spreading across it like purple wildfire, charring the flesh from the wing bone before fizzling out of existence. Mecha took flight as Dragon clawed at him, kicking the creature in the head for good measure. Dragon inhaled, held, and then blasted a fireball from his mouth, the flames striking Mecha's chest, scorching the paint and softening the metal. Dragon bounded towards the robot and slashed, the claws hitting where the fireball did, passing through the weakened metal leaving three ugly rips in the armour's surface.

Mecha Became angry, his Matrix processing the creature's new attack method as he aimed at the dragon's flanks, flying past and shooting a plasma blast at it, the fire struck and burned its flesh slightly. Now with some distance between them the two combatants began to use long range attacks, Mecha switched to rapid fire on his rife, blasting a succession of purple blasts at the creature, who dodged some, others burning its black flesh, leaving great red patches.

Dragon kept blasting fireballs towards the robot, blackening its paint more, and decreasing the armour's structural integrity. Without his wings he couldn't do much else.

Mecha eyed his heat gauges; if he overheated he would be easy pray to this creature, he gazed at his opponent, trying to think of some way to defeat it, his pattern of attack just wasn't doing enough, he looked at his left hand, it was being used to steady the rifle, but the final Mecha bot had had an idea. He closed the guard plates, returning his hand to the nanite collective, he then rebuilt the spike's point and deployed it, recreating the big spike he had had attached in the first place.

Mecha fired off another burst of plasma and lined up his attack, he continued to shoot at the creature, then, suddenly, ignited afterburners in the flight pack, accelerating close to max speed, he pulled back his spike arm, and slammed it forwards towards the creature's chest.

Dragon flapped his remaining wing, spinning his body out of harms way just at the last second, the spike punching air; Dragon then whipped around and clawed the flight pack from Mecha's back.

Mecha gave a digital snarl as he was sent spinning, he managed to loose off a single plasma burst, destroying Dragon's remaining wing, as his body flew through the air, then it crashed onto the deck, Mecha rose shakily to his feet and motioned to shoot Dragon again.

Nothing happened, Mecha checked his HUD, he was dry, no ammo left, his cutting through the floor had used plasma from his ammo to power the cutter, now he was empty. He retracted the rifle and assembled his hand, running through the nanite programs, looking for one that could help. He found a left arm weapon, assembled, armed and fired it, a plan of attack already forming.

From his left cylinder a missile like object left at high velocity, powered by a fuel canister stored within the cylinder in a shielded pod, the pod returning to the collective. The object was a short, thin, cylinder, the drive, and a long thin spike, the 'warhead'. The missile sped towards Dragon, steering itself around the blasts of fire hurled at it, it flew straight and true, imbedding itself deep in the creature's chest, the Nanites that constituted the missile disassembling and flowing into Dragon's bloodstream. They made their way to his brain and began to destroy it.

Dragon screamed and clutched his head, pain dancing all around it, his head felt on fire, his brain was being destroyed, killing him slowly and painfully, but Mecha wasn't done yet.

He had reformed his hands into long, thin spikes and had deployed the forwards wheel in each foot, the one in his heel beginning to rev, he was going to leave at great speed. He blasted away from his starting point, crouching slightly and driving straight towards the creature, Dragon saw him and threw back his head, attempting to create a huge fireball, but he never got the chance as Mecha sprang from the floor, his speed carrying him up, he slammed his right hand spike into the underside Dragon's head, it blasted through and out the top.

Mecha's momentum knocked Dragon off his feet and they fell onto the deck, Dragon's last word were projected through the network, _'Self…has…failed…'_

Mecha severed the creature's head with a sword program in his left arm, keeping the head impaled on the spike he picked up the flight pack remains in his left hand and wandered back to the Mecha lab, depositing the creature's head on the worktop.

"Damage report: Hull at 67 Flight pack wrecked, Flight pack connectors wrecked, Plasma ammo empty, nanite reserves; Right canister 87 Left canister 75, learning Matrix Productivity up by 140. Connecting Modem, uploading battle footage, Suggestion Doctor, wireless modem" Came Mecha's synthesized voice as he stood on his pad in Station 6 and addressed the shocked Dr Robotnik who was staring at the grizzly trophy on the work surface,

"Why did you bring that?" He asked, pointing at the head

"Nanites were used in subduing creature, some may be extracted from the head, plus I thought you might like to analyse the creature, this saves you having to have the whole of it brought down to the lab" Replied Mecha, he didn't know there were many labs and construction facilities aboard Wreck Base, he only knew the Mecha lab, the passage to the deck and the upper deck itself.

"Core powering down, Mecha bot 6 initiating Standby" came System Core's voice, informing the baffled scientist of his creation's actions. Dr Robotnik was, to be truthful, a little scared of his new creation, it had brought back its opponent's head, the footage also showed that it could be a vicious fighter, he hoped this creation did not turn on him.


	12. 12 Boss: 00319 'Talons'

Mist 

_Anger and Hatred Fan the fires of chaos_

Kir awoke with a feeling of dread; his dreams had taken a nightmarish turn involving the mutants from the tomb, one of whom had a chaos emerald imbedded in his forehead. 

After a quick breakfast he stood before the green emerald, sinking down into the order within the chaos, and gave it a command, "show me the red emerald, and its bearer," he said, opening his eyes to see a picture forming within the green gem. It was Flare, skating along a path, Kir looked and recognised the scenery, Flare was in the Marble Garden ruins but he seemed to be on the far side of the ruined city, far from 'The Camp'.

Now that Kir knew where Flare was he could reach him, so he took off towards Marble Gardens, running past Miira, just as she was about to ask him about climbing Ice Cap. He sped off down what used to be the main road through the city, hoping to meet Flare halfway through.

Flare was looking about him, taking in the scenery of the ruined city, Kir had told him a bit about it, but not why it had become ruined. He could see the square courtyard that the city spread out from right in front of him, he was halfway through, and he should get back to the camp by nightfall. His stomach growled, maybe if he got back fast enough he would be home by dinner.

He was looking about him at what had been a market enclosure when he saw something fly overhead. It resembled some form of bird, but it had hideously mutated, gaining bat-like wings and long talons instead of claws. Flare stared at the monstrosity, then realised that it was heading towards 'The Camp' and he didn't think its intentions were friendly. He skated after the bird-thing, hoping he reached 'The Camp' before it. He didn't notice that the red emerald had found its way into his burnt hand, and it was glowing slightly. Flare sped up.

Kir didn't think he'd meet Flare halfway after all; Flare could skate faster than Kir could run and Flare had an emerald, if he could use it he could go faster than he normally would, big if though.

Kir spotted something in the distance, at first he thought it was Flare, but then he saw it was too high off the ground, Flare floated, he didn't fly. The silhouette resolved itself into a creature, a bird with bat-like wings and huge talons, Kir recognised it as one of the mutants from the tomb, one of the ones he hadn't freed, maybe this is what had been praying on people in Mystic Ruins.

The Bird-thing landed in front of Kir, looking intently at him, then it spoke in a screechy voice,

"You are test 01, you are the destroyer. Self is experiment 00319, 'Talons', the masters shall be avenged" with that he swiped at Kir with the long talons, his beak snapping shut as he bit at the Echidna as he tried to dodge.

Kir was confused, he was a Test? He had thought that the Mutants were at the lower end of the experimentation, before any flaws in the system had been ironed out, and this creature was number 319, how many were there? Kir fought back, leaping towards the creature's head and slashing with his knuckle-claws, he didn't connect with his target, a taloned hand on the wing joint batted him away, sending him crashing into a tree, dazed and groaning.

Talons pulled one taloned hand back, closed it, but left one finger extended, and snapped his hand forwards in a slashing motion. The talon on the finger snapped off at the base and scythed through the air, flying straight towards Kir's head.

Kir saw the talon just before it hit him, snapping into mistform, but feeling the talon slash his face, had he been a second slower he would have been impaled. He looked at the experiment as a new talon began growing in place of the one now lodged in the tree. Talons had been gifted with both extremely fast regeneration and such minute control of his body that he could stop his talons growing any longer that was needed, and could weaken the base of them to send them flying at his foes. He brought his hand back, all his fingers spread, and slashed forwards, five talons scything off towards Kir.

"Noooooooooooooooo!!!" came a yell, and a fireball crashed into Talons' side, he whirled and saw Flare standing there.

Flare had arrived just in time to see the first talon fly into Kir's head, he had gripped the red emerald, his rage growing, he began drawing on the power of the emerald, he was attuned to it, he knew instinctively how to use it and sank into the one patch of order within it, drawing on more and more power, the emerald itself becoming chaos energy, sank into his hand, a shining crystal grew out of the back of Flare's hand, his airspace became an aura of chaos fire, he floated 5 feet from the ground, his spines stood up, charged with chaos energy and his eyes filled with red, chaos fore wreathing his vision.

"Noooooooooooooooo!!!" he yelled and threw a ball of chaos fire at the creature, forcing his power into his aura he blasted towards Talons at the speed of a bullet, albeit a bullet wreathed in flames of chaotic energy.

Flare began punching and kicking the experiment, his fists and feet burning with every touch, Talons began to heal each wound a few seconds after he received them, he backed off and launched a talon at Flare, Flare focused is aura and the talon melted upon contact. Flare threw more fireballs and Talons sent more talons scything off towards the floating hedgehog, they then dashed towards each other, trading punches and kicks and slashed and bites, Flare warping his aura to shield him, Talons healing his wounds.

Flare could see this wasn't working and blasted straight into Talons, forcing him to the ground and pinning him there, he stared into the creature's terrified face, Talons gazing into the pulsating red eyes of the chaos fuelled monster pinning him to the floor.

Flare grinned and uttered a single word into the experiment's face as he drew on massive amounts of chaos energy, "BURN"

Flare's chaos flame aura exploded with massive amounts of heat, expanding and burning everything within a 5 metre radius, the grass burned, the marble cracked and melted, the molten marble flowed into the depression left by the miniature inferno, and Talons' body began to melt, his blood evaporating as his liquid body mixed with the marble and all the while Flare was laughing maniacally as the world burned around him.

He let go of the power; it flowed back into the emerald now imbedded in the back of his hand and the flames lowered, the ground cooling and Flare's spines falling back down and his eyes returning to normal as he turned and walked over to the tree Kir had been hiding behind, his friend stared at him with terror,

"Hi Kir, what've you been doing since I last saw you?" he said offering his hand and pulling Kir up

"L…L…looking for y…you" he said wary of his friend, he had heard Flare's laugh as 00319 'Talons' melted, it had scared him more than the Masters had.

"Well, lets get back to 'The Camp', and you can tell me what the hell that thing was and why it attacked you" Flare said, grinning mischievously as he added, "I'll race ya"

Kir raced after the departing hedgehog, arriving about a minute after him at 'The Camp'

Later that night, after Kir had told Flare, and Miira, everything about the tomb, his capture and the mutants he decided that enough was enough, the Tomb had been the cause of so many problems, and it should be removed from existence.

Flare and Kir teleported off of the island, arriving outside the Tomb, they had come with only one purpose,

Destruction


	13. 13 Destruction

Mist 

_In this world,_

_Everything is made,_

_To be broken_

Claws had felt Talons' death through the link and felt nothing, but it had made him think, the destroyer had a powerful friend, to kill 01 they would have to separate 49 from him long enough for Claws to tear the destroyer apart. 

When he felt the surge of Chaos energy outside the tomb he smiled, the destroyer had removed the need to find him, now to set a trap and the Masters would be avenged. He stole silently from his chamber and roused some select experiments to put his plan in motion.

---

Kir walked to the entrance of the tomb, he had left via this door only two weeks ago, and now he was back, to put an end to this place forever.

He signalled Flare and they both stepped inside, walking along the passage that the explorers had taken when they had roused Kir from his self-imprisonment. Kir stopped and looked into the lab one last time, walking to the back he found a leather bandolier, it was his father's, there was one knife left in its slots, the others were scattered around the tomb in various decaying corpses, and the disk pouch was half full. Kir put the bandolier on, its weight on his shoulder reminding him of his father, the blade master, and Kir was going to fulfil his promise, he would slaughter the experiments and his revenge would be complete.

Continuing down the passage they went deeper and deeper into the structure, winding down to a large circular space, the Masters meeting hall, the area had a large empty circle in the middle with banks of seats rising up around the arena, it was here the trap was sprung.

Four experiments grabbed Flare, one with thick, metal plated arms whacked him on the back of the head, knocking him out, then they dragged him away to the seats and sat, guarding him from rescue.

During this five big experiments confronted Kir and kept him busy, fighting for his life, to prevent him helping Flare, he dodged massive fists and horns and claws, punching back with his knuckle-blades, wounding the creatures, he had killed one when there was a shout from one of the entrances, the four remaining experiments backed off to reveal who had shouted.

It was an the creature Kir had seen in his nightmare, Kir could see that the creature had once been blue, but something had bleached its fur white, its eyes were solid black, broken by a green iris, it had found some red shoes somewhere and had a pair of white gloves on, the long, curving claws protruded from the ends. On its forehead was an octagonal shape, it was like the crystal embedded in Flare's hand, it was a chaos emerald, the white one, and by the creature's floating stance and how its dreadlocks stuck up, it could be seen that it had absorbed huge amounts of chaos energy.

Kir stared at 01149 'Claws' as he advanced on the white echidna, flexing his hands, itching to tear into the destroyer. He had hated Test 01 since he had seen the Masters last message when he had woken, the masters had told of how Test 01 had returned from a slaving trip and had proceeded to kill every mater and soldier he had seen, the message ended with the master speaking stiffening, then completely relaxing, sinking to the floor with a knife protruding from its head, the destroyer standing behind, he looked straight at the camera and left.

Kir was shaking in shock, it was like looking in a mirror, and then the experiment spoke with a rasping voice,

"Self is 01149, Claws, self is the avenger. Test 01, you are the destroyer of the masters, for this I will execute you. Test 49, you are to watch, it is a preview of your own fate" said Claws, turning to Flare as he said this, not knowing that he was still unconscious, as he did Kir saw the number 00149 tattooed on the back of Claws' shoulder.

Claws turned back to Kir and launched himself forwards with a snarl, claws outstretched, slashing at Kir's face, Kir shifted into mistform and jumped backwards, the tip of the claws passing through the very edge of Kir's mistform. Claws was confused, but his energy sense, coupled with his chaos tinted vision had shown him Kir's trick, he saw the energy transfer from the shard around Kir's neck, causing him so shift to mistform.

Claws grinned, he had a plan, he began fighting with the mistform, his blow passing straight through, Kir, shifting into a more solid form, slashed back, chaos energy rippling around his mistform. Claws kept up his charade for about 30 seconds more, then slashed horizontally at Kir's chest, catching the shard pendant, he ripped the pendant from the mistform, the chain snapping and the necklace was hurled across the arena, landing against the second bank of seats. Kir reverted back to normal, clutching the bloody patch on his chest, the pendant bonded with his flesh and it had just ripped a chunk of his chest with it. Claws came slashing back at Kir, who jumped out of the way and slashed at claws half heartedly, the pain in his chest was distracting him, and slowing him down, Claws' next slash connected, leaving four lines across the side of Kir's face, blood oozing up along the tracks.

Claws came stabbing at Kir, who dived behind the body of the experiment he had killed, Claws' claws plunging deep into the corpse's back. Claws snarled and tore up Kir's cover, then, before he had any time to react, plunged his claws into Kir's chest, and the chaos emerald in his head flashed.

Kir felt the claws puncture his skin, and then he could feel nothing. He opened his eyes and found his vision chaos enhanced, like he was in mistform, he saw the surprise in Claws' face and looked at his hand, he was mistform. He was also surprised until he looked up at Claws' face again, and saw the emerald in his opponent's head. He felt out towards it and felt instantly in tune with its power, he was attuned to the white emerald; he could use its power despite it being in his enemy. Well, he could fix that problem.

Kir solidified his mistform, trapping Claws' hand in his body, Kir reached out and grabbed the emerald, the power had softened the flesh around it, and dug his fingers into Claws' head, ripping the chaos emerald out of his enemy's head he held it tightly and began to draw on its power, it sank into his hands and a gem grew out of the raw patch where the shard pendant had been, Kir's dreadlocks stood upwards and he began to float.

It was an odd sight for spectators, two echidnas, both white, both chaos charged, floated there, glaring at each other, one had green tinged dreadlocks whereas the other's was tinged blue. Having absorbed so much chaos energy Claws stayed chaos charged, but he was wounded now, there was a chunk of his head missing, he screamed and threw himself at Kir, who fought back with equal force, claws met claws, feet were blocked with knees, heads crashed together, claws slashed, each bit each other then the broke away catching their breath.

Kir's instincts, now attuned to the emerald, began to utilize his crystalline weapon. He drew the air around him into a spinning frenzy, focusing the miniature whirlwind into one area he flattened the tempest into a disk shape and hurled it at Claws, the power of a tornado focused into a tiny area exploded full force on Claws, tearing at his flesh, the wind felt like hundreds of tiny blades.

Kir began to throw more and more razorwind at his foe, feeling what Flare had, the euphoria of power, and he began to laugh as his enemy was torn apart by the chaos driven winds.

He turned from Claws' remains and looked at those creatures guarding Flare, they fled in terror leaving Flare free but hundreds of experiments flowed into the arena.

Kir and Flare stood back to back; Flare drew on his emerald's power, chaos fire enveloping him. Flare began to ignite the chaos fire as Kir's chaos wind whipped it around and around them, a firestorm was brewing and in the centre of the arena, surrounded by hundreds of enemies, the two built their power, the storm increasing in size and ferocity, tearing up the ground and whirling the rubble around the pair.

The storm then exploded, experiments were consumed, the fire melted some, the liquid whirled around the storm before it evaporated, those drawn in were shredded or smashed with the increasing amount of rubble swirling around. The Tomb was torn apart from the inside, the firestorm consuming everything, the entire complex, and the land above it was destroyed, all the experiments had been killed, the Masters legacy was no more.

In the eye of the firestorm stood the two who were driving and powering the raging inferno, in Kir's hand was the golden pendant, he had brought it into the eye before it could be damaged. The two destroyers teleported home, the storm dying as they left, the great crater filling with rubble and body parts as a grizzly rain fell down upon the ruined tomb.

Kir and Flare appeared in the centre of 'The Camp', they then fell to the ground, unconscious and exhausted, their chaos emeralds glowing slightly as the inhabitants carried them to their huts, Miira stayed and watched over Kir as he slept, his dreams free of the experiments and his conscience cleaned of the guilt of The Tomb.


	14. 14 Epilogue: Dreams Come True

Mist 

_From the chaos comes order,_

_From destruction comes rebirth._

A week after the destruction of the Tomb and Miira had finally got what she had wanted, she and Kir were hiking across the island, their destination, Icecap Mountain.

She had helped Kir recover from his wounds during the week, she had stayed by him and he had told her what happened, sparing some of the more gruesome details, as well as revealing a few more things, she had sat by him when Sonic came to ask about the firestorm that everyone had seen in Mystic Ruins. She had asked him how he had been able to make the Chaos Drive converter that Flare had broken and he had explained that when the Masters had placed the mind controller on him, they had programmed a wealth of technical information onto his head, so he had kept reams of technical know how, and the masters curiosity of chaos energy.

The day had begun at dawn as they set off through the Marble Gardens ruins, Kir sadly gazing about him at the ruins, Miira felt sorry for him; he was guilty about destroying the city again,

"Kir, stop beating yourself up about what you didn't do" she had told him, to which he replied,

"But I did do it Miira, I destroyed our people, I wrecked the city"

Miira grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him round, "No you didn't, I remember when I was captured, you tried to help, I saw that, there was someone else in your head, they had put someone else in there, you didn't destroy it, Mist did" she told him angrily

Kir had brightened up now, so he had obviously thought about it, they considered going through the carnival, but thought they should just go round, they might lose too much time in the carnival. This brought them to the foot of Icecap.

"Well, here we are, you want lunch first?" Kir said, sitting down and opening his pack

"Yeah, we shout eat now before going up, that way we won't have to sit in the snow and eat" Miira said, getting food out of her pack and sitting down beside Kir.

The same thoughts about each other ran through their minds, both to afraid to ask encase their fears were confirmed.

They finished lunch and continued up the mountain, talking to each other about general things and what they thought the others would be doing. Miira then asked about the chaos emerald that was now affixed to a pendant around Kir's neck. Kir explained as much about them that he knew, and explained about how he had shrunk the emerald to make it a better size to fit into a pendant. By about 3 they had reached the top and stood, looking down at the island below them, marvelling at its beauty, behind them was a strange lake, there was a bowl like formation on the top of the mountain, and water had collected there, but something prevented it from freezing so there was the ice lake atop the great mountain.

Kir was looking out over the lake when he saw something on a slab of ice, floating on the lake. Telling Miira to stay there he used the emerald and flew over to the slab, picked something up, put it in his pack and flew back.

"What is it?" asked Miira, as Kir landed

"You'll find out later" he said, "You want to go back down now?" he asked, and Miira nodded, grabbed up her pack and started towards the way they had came

"No Miira, we're not climbing down, come here" Kir said, Miira walked over to him and he picked her up.

They flew down from Icecap, past Sky Sanctuary and over the Marble Gardens, they flew around the island until it began to get dark, then they made their way back to 'The Camp', landing outside Miira's hut.

Kir walked in with her as she climbed into bed, he hugged her and began to walk away, Miira remembered a dream she had had and finally found the courage she had been looking for all day,

"Kir…I…I love you," she said as he reached the door.

Kir froze as she said this and she feared she had ruined it, she had blown her friendship, she anxiously waited as he turned around, surprise on his face.

"Y…you…do?" he said, she nodded and he smiled, "I…I do to" he said and walked back to her hammock

They hugged each other, and then kissed before Kir walked back to his own hut, he hadn't seen the number 50 tattooed behind Miira's ear.

…Fin…


End file.
